Ye Shanghai! Roberto Paci Dalò for SH Contemporary 2012
Ye Shanghai 夜上海 is a music-visual performance by Roberto Paci Dalò
created for SH Contemporary 2012 and produced by Davide Quadrio in
collaboration with Francesca Girelli (Arthub Asia).
The project deals with several aspects of the Shanghainese life
before 1949. At the core of this work is the incredible story of the
Shanghai Ghetto, formally known as the Restricted Sector for Stateless
Refugees (無国籍難民限定地区 mukokuseki nanmin gentei chiku).
The Ghetto was an
area of approximately one square mile located in the Hongkou District of
Japanese-occupied Shanghai. It housed about 20,000 Jewish refugees
relocated by the Japanese-issued Proclamation Concerning Restriction of
Residence and Business of Stateless Refugees, after they fled from the
German-occupied Europe before and during World War II.The work is also related to the Japanese occupation of the city. Although Japan and China had fought intermittently since 1931, the occupation of Shanghai started in 1937 when the city fell during the Battle of Songhu. The Japanese forces occupied the Chinese administered parts of Shanghai outside of the International Settlement and the French Concession. The International Settlement was occupied by the Japanese on 8 December 1941 and remained occupied until Japan’s surrender in 1945.
Historical background
“From the middle of the 19th Century, Shanghai served as a focus of Jewish immigration to China. By the end of the 1930s, Sephardic Jews, Russian Jews and Jewish refugees from Nazi Europe in Shanghai amounted to over thirty thousand forming the largest community in the Far East.
From 1903 to 1949, more then fifty Jewish newspapers and magazines came out in Shanghai in English, Russian, German, French, Chinese, Japanese, Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish. From 1939 to 1946 more then thirty German, Yiddish and Polish newspapers and magazines were published by Jewish refugees in Shanghai.” (Pan Guang)
The International Settlement of Shanghai was established by the Treaty of Nanking. Police, jurisdiction and passport control were implemented by the foreign autonomous board. Under the Unequal Treaties between China and European countries, visas were only required to book tickets departing from Europe. During the Japanese occupation started in 1937, the Shanghai harbor began to allow refugees to enter without any visa or passport. By the time most German Jews arrived, two other Jewish communities had already settled in the city: the wealthy Baghdadi Jews, including the Kadoorie and Sassoon families, and the Russian Jews. The last ones, forced to fled the Russian Empire because of the anti-Semitic pogroms fostered by the tsarist regime and the Bolshevik class warfare, had formed a Russian community in Harbin and subsequently in Shanghai.
The Project
Roberto Paci Dalo’s project will culminate with a performance based on visual and audio materials from the years between 1933 and 1949. This database, composed of historical media, will be converted into a contemporary art work based on live video projections and music.
The iconic material used as a departure for this work is 夜上海Nights of Shanghai – a song interpreted by Zhou Xuan (1918 - 1957). This hit from the 1940s will represent the aural and sonic environment of the piece. Being sampled, decomposed-recomposed, it will become a texture that will embrace the entire performance.
From the enlarged texture of this song, will gradually emerge components made out of live instrumental sounds (a small ensemble will play on the central staircase of the Shanghai Exhibition Center’s main hall), samples from archive materials (voices in English, Yiddish, Chinese, German), will recreate soundscapes from the past, along with electronics sounds.
The projected images will be selected from the archive materials (films, photographs, handwritten notes) together with nowadays shooting on location. The projections will be controlled in realtime during the performance.
This project presents also a strong connection with Italy, since many refugees heading to China were leaving from the ports of Trieste and Genoa. Those who managed to purchase tickets for the Italian Lloyd Triestino steamships, later described their luxurious journey as surreal. From the persecution in Europe to a squalid ghetto in Shanghai, that three-week cruise in between, plenty of food and entertainment, represented an unreal and dreamy rite of passage.
The project is created by Roberto Paci Dalò in collaboration with Yu Xiaolu, Zhang Yinyi, Yu Xueou, Tan Mei, Sun Mengxuan. They firstly met during a workshop by Paci Dalò at the SIVA Shanghai Institute of Visual Art in May 2012, an event hosted by ArtHub Asia and supported by Aike Gallery.
During the preparation of the project – throughout Summer 2012 – the team will work both at the ArtHub headquarter (located in the M50 art district) and at the iTOPIA Management Consulting Co. Ltd.’s space “Mid-lake Pavillion” right in the heart of the Hongqiao New Town Central Park in downtown Shanghai.
Credits, Partners and Sponsors
Ye Shanghai 夜上海 a performance by Roberto Paci Dalò
in collaboration with Yu Xiaolu, Yu Xueou, Tan Mei, Sun Mengxuan
Roberto Paci Dalò – idea, music, images
Music ensemble from the Shanghai Conservatory of Music
Davide Montecchi – video editing
Hibanana – live video
Zhang Yinyi, Tang Yuzhen – assistance
Andrea Felli/Farmhouse – audio post-production
Davide Quadrio, Francesca Girelli – producers
A co-production Arthub Asia, SH Contemporary, Giardini Pensili, NOTCH Festival, Messagerie
In collaboration with: iTOPIA Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Home Movies - Archivio Nazionale del Film di Famiglia Bologna, Shanghai Conservatory of Music
Giardini Pensili is supported by the Comune di Rimini, the Provincia di Rimini, the Regione Emilia Romagna.
